Taste of Buffalo

July 2016 - Buffalo New York

We left on Saturday morning for Buffalo. We had been at Taste of Buffalo in 2006 and 2008 and really enjoyed it.

The plan was to go to Taste of Buffalo for lunch and then go on to Rochester for two nights.

It was a gorgeous day as we crossed the Skyway bridge.

You can cross the border at either Lewiston or Fort Erie, we chose Fort Erie.

Some sights as we parked the car and walked up to the Taste.

The Ellicott Square Building was designed by Charles Atwood of D. H. Burnham & Company, and completed in May, 1896. At the time of its completion, it was the largest office building in the world. In 1896 and 1897, the building was the site of Edisonia Hall and the Vitascope Theater, the earliest known dedicated motion picture theater in the world.

At 10 stories high—with the capacity to support 10 more floors—and 447,000 square feet (41,500 m2), the Ellicott Square Building was the largest office building in the world by floor area until 1908, with the opening of the Hudson Terminal buildings in New York City. It was built at a cost of $3.5 million in less than one year. The building was named after Joseph Ellicott, the planner and surveyor who laid out the then-village of Buffalo.

The square was named for General Lafayette, who visited Buffalo in 1825.

The square was part of the original urban plan for the city as laid out by Joseph Ellicott in 1804. Its eastern edge has long been defined by important civic structures; first, the Erie County Courthouse, followed by the original Buffalo & Erie County Public Library.

A granite Civil War monument, titled Soldiers and Sailors, gives a strong vertical and ceremonial definition to the space. Conceived by Mrs. Horatio Seymour, the monument's dedication ceremony was attended by Grover Cleveland and other prominent figures.

The Liberty Building at 424 Main Street was designed by British architect Alfred Bossom and finished in 1925, it's unusual in that it's a neoclassical in style and has two replicas of the Statue of Liberty sitting atop its roof.

The monolithic U.S. Courthouse in Buffalo, renamed in 1987 in honor of longtime Internal Revenue Service employee Michael J. Dillon, occupies an entire block along Niagara Square, the city's civic center since 1802. Construction of the seven-story sandstone and steel courthouse in 1936 resulted from Buffalo's evolution as one of the country's most important industrial centers, which brought numerous federal agencies to the city.

This building is no longer the courthouse and is being considered for other purposes. See the new courthouse further down.
 

One of the two main entrances to the building, on Court Street, features a smooth stone surround into which is carved "United States Court House." A monumental carved eagle perches above the door surround. The entry doors, frames, and transoms are cast aluminum with ornamental grillwork. A cast-bronze medallion is centered above the middle door.

Buffalo City Hall, which dominates Niagara Square, is an Art Deco masterpiece. It was designed by John Wade with the assistance of George Dietel and completed in 1931.

View of Niagara Square in the foreground and Lafayette Square in the background from Buffalo City Hall during a snow flurry.

Friezes by Albert Stewart.

Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was an American statesman who served as the 13th President of the United States from 1850 to 1853. He was the last Whig president, and the last president not to be affiliated with either the Democratic or Republican parties. Fillmore was the only Whig president who did not die in office or get expelled from the party, and Fillmore appointed the only Whig Supreme Court Justice. As Zachary Taylor's vice president, he assumed the presidency after Taylor's death. Fillmore was a lawyer from western New York state, and an early member of the Whig Party.  He was elected vice president of the United States in 1848 as Taylor's running mate, and served from 1849 until Taylor's death in 1850, at the height of the "Crisis of 1850" over slavery.

The McKinley Monument is a 96-foot (29 m) tall obelisk in Niagara Square,. Its location in front of Buffalo City Hall defines the center of the city and many of Buffalo's major roads converge on it.

The monument was commissioned by the State of New York and dedicated September 6, 1907 to the memory of William McKinley, 25th President of the United States, who was fatally shot while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6, 1901.

Architect Daniel H. Burnham, called in to consult on the project, had suggested an obelisk, with fountains at the base and decided where it should be placed. In the end, the monument consists of a Vermont and Italian marble obelisk with surrounding Italian marble lions, each 12 feet (3.7 m) long and weighing 12 tons. It was designed by architects Carrère and Hastings, who had led the design of the Exposition, with animal sculptures by Alexander Phimister Proctor that include sleeping lions, symbols of strength, and turtles, emblematic of eternal life.

Poet Carl Sandburg wrote a poem on the monument, Slants at Buffalo, New York, beginning: "A forefinger of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky. / It says: This way! this way!"

The glass building is the new Michael Dillon courthouse.

 Now for some nosh, grub and pig out, wolf down some goodies.

The food we sampled are in another post, Weekend Cooking.

Coconut shrimp that we didn't get a photo of.

We tried the tacos.

Had the flank steak kabob.

We tried the jalapeno bombs.

Lots of fish tacos, one of my favourites and I didn't have any.

Photo Friday. link up.